Starting from the 1st day of school this year, I have been coming in to the office at about 7:40am everyday. Only on Fridays, I arrive about 8:30am.
That's much, much, much earlier than I have been arriving at the office last year and the years before that. Then, it was common to find me in the office only closer to 9am.
A typical school/work day will start off when my alarm clocks rings at 5:15am. Once up, I wash up a little, then set about cleaning the table, boiling the water and getting the boys' water bottles ready etc. Then I wake R and WY up when breakfast is ready at about 5:45am.
As R and WY eat breakfast, I go for my shower. Then it will be time to settle the lanudry (sometimes it is to put the clothes to wash, sometimes it will be to hang them out to dry). By this time, R would (have to) finish washing up the dishes and be in his shower. WY would also have been shoo'ed into his shower.
By about 6:40am or so, everyone would be dressed up and ready to set off for school. We only briefly check that WF is ok (still sleeping soundly on his bed), then we would dash off to the lift.
The journey to school via PIE is generally quite alright with only an unexplainable slow-down just outside Kallang Swimming Complex. The challenge comes when we exit at Whitley Road.
The crawl from Whitley Road to the junction where The Equatorial (which has been morphed from Hotel Equatorial) is, will take an average of 15 minutes. During this time, I will watch the dark morning sky slowly cracking up to a new, soft glow. The process seems no faster than our crawl on the jam-packed road.
When we finally turn into Bt Timah Road, the going will be a little smoother along the stretch just outside NIE. But once we hit the Bt Timah Road / Farrer Road junction, we will have to slow down once again.
Starting from Coronation Plaze (where a long line of cars waits to turn into King's Road, presumably for NYPS), it will be a slow crawl until Gate 2 of the school. In between, there will be many cars inching in from the left to the right, and from the rightto the left....
The ride up to WY's classroom block is a great relief from the jam on the road outside the school. In fact, it is nice to just look over the field and tracks, where some runners will be jogging on. What a contrast to the crazy jam just on the other side of the school fence.
After WY alights from the car, we will proceed slowly to exit at Gate 3 where the wait for our turn to go out to the main road will take an average of 5 minutes. Then to get to the U-turn and actually making the U-turn into Dunearn Road will take another 10 to 15 minutes.
All in all, we will be on Dunearn Road by about 7:20am - 7:30am. Our ERP-less ride (ERP has not been switched on yet at that time, phew!) to the office via Stevens Road, Scotts Road, Orchard Road, Penang Road and then Havelock Road and South Bridge Road (or sometimes we use Temple Street in Chinatown for this part) takes about 10 minutes.
It's refreshing to be the 1st person around my work station to arrive in the office each morning. I am still not very used to it yet, but I think I will soon; the guards at the lobby always sound very loud as they cheerfully greet me, "Good morning!" :)
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3 comments:
When will WY be allowed to take the bus himself to school? He does take the bus home himself, right?
Going so early reminds me of the days, when I send J to his kinderkrippe (childcare) at around 730am and I go to office at around 745am. There is a cutoff time of 8am latest, whereby the krippe activities will begin. (breakfast, snack, etc).
Now my elderly neighbours said they are willing to take my 2 children for 3 days a week, maybe just maybe M can go out to work part time? Dunno la.
Maybe going out to work part time is good, but can your elderly neighbours be trusted 'enough' to ensure safety etc?
To get to school on time if WY takes the bus, WY will have to be out of the house latest by 6am. How's that for independence? Struggling to stay awake on the bus on the hour-long journey (including the jams)? How's that for independence?
We don't have snow here, but we have to deal with torrential rains when they come. Wadding through floods (even if the level is just ankle-level) in soaked-through shoes to rush to the classroom isn't our idea of independence.
In case you are not aware, a typical school day stretches from 7:20am to 3:30pm (on average). Sometimes the day ends only at 6:45pm.
Getting WY to school by car is not an issue of independence or otherwise. It's only a question of how we can make the hard school life the children have these days, slightly easier and a little more bearable.
I can understand your explanation about going out at 6am and sleeping on the bus, etc etc.
However, last time we also did not have this and we also had to take bus quite early by ourselves.
Although I agree with the "easier solution", we sacrifice the opportunity for "independence training" for WY, I am sure you will agree.
Of course we cannot have the cake and eat it too.
Our neighbours' son (together with their 4 children) recently migrated to Australia. He was their fav son (hint hint). They miss him and they sort of took us as the replacement family. They invite us for dinner on Monday and I casually popped the question, and to my surprise, the wife was very very happy to offer 3 days. I think she misses her grandchildren, and S is the same age as the youngest granddaughter in Australia now.
No la, it was only a suggestion, and I don't think we will take it up seriously. However, they can be trusted la.
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